Songs with Clever/Darker/Unsuspecting Lyrics - Patrick Bateman: You like Huey Lewis and the News?

[Psyduck]

"Jueves" by La Oreja de Van Gogh

Starts out as a heartfelt, sweet little acoustic about a pair of strangers falling in love at the train station, but none of them having the initiative to make the first move, song takes place from the girl's perspective, her insecurities, wondering if the guy even notices her at all, etc. Lyrics are very reminiscing of those teenage love songs from back then.

As the song picks up, the couple in the song make their move after boarding the train, they introduce themselves to each other, and to the girl's joy, dude confesses he feels the same way she does. She is happy.

As the train rides inside a tunnel, the new couple hold hands, with the girl expressing she will take advantage of the tunnel's darkness to steal a kiss from the guy. The lights go out, and she says she will never forget this moment, she will never forget this day, March 11th.

The instrumental dies down to a sole piano, and the song ends with the girl reaching for the guy's face with her hands for a kiss, receiving a soft "I love you" in return, and her declaring that her "remaining heartbeats" are all his.


On the day of March 11th, 2004, multiple bombs exploded in the subway tunnels in Madrid, Spain. The worst terrorist attack in Spain, killing over 190 people.

Now apparently the song's true meaning is well known over there, as the band has stated so in many local interviews, but from an outsider's point of view, you really wouldn't be able to tell at all, nothing in the song besides maybe the very last lyric (The remaining beats of my heart) even suggests anything other than a love song, so when i learned about the whole thing my mind exploded.

 

[D_Tractor]

Pumped up kicks is the obvious as fuck choice

It's about niggers shooting each other over sneakers, not about white kids shooting up their school.

 

[NigKid]

It's about niggers shooting each other over sneakers, not about white kids shooting up their school.

man that takes me back to that absolute hellhole of a time when this would play 24/7 on all stations in my neck of the woods. Hearing it now induces some mild trauma

 

[Elaine Miller]

This song is actually about a school shooting.
Brenda Ann Spencer, aged 16 at the time, opened fire at a San Diego Elementary school. She’s currently 59 and serving a life sentence at a prison in California, USA.

When asked why she did the shooting, she responded with “I don’t like Mondays”

 

[MT Foxtrot]

This is not a song about being a good academic student. It's a song about being happy to destroy the world with nuclear weaponry. Thing is, I can't find the full version with the last bit of lyrics

Well I'm well aware
of the world out there
gettin' blown all to pieces
but what do I care?

Not a huge secret that the song is about nuclear annihilation and the government destroying civilization over some fucking balloons, but not as well known is that this really did almost happen due to a glitch in the radar cup.

 

[Cardenio]

So here's another of why Steely Dan earned it's spot as one of the greatest acts of pop music.

Lyrically Barrytown sounds like it's just a little pop song about a guy who is annoyed by hippies that have come to his town. Fagen's vocals in this track to me have a sort of Bob Dylan-like twing sound

Don't believe I'm taken in
By stories I have heard
I just read the Daily News
And swear by every word

But look at what you wear
And the way you cut your hair

Barrytown people got to be
From another world

Pretty clear cut? Well if you bother to research the song's title the song takes on a whole new meaning. In 1975 Barrytown NY became a major base of operations for the Unification Church. The Unification Church is a small new religion movement that faced heavy criticism for being a cult decades back, because well they frankly do appear cultlike with their mass weddings and their now deceased leader Sun Myung Moon declaring himself to be a Messiah. But the Moonies as they're typically referred to were anything but hippies. They are a politically vocal and strongly conservative group. They found and own the conservative newspaper The Washington Times. This is how the Moonies looked in the 1970s.

So with that in mind the song takes a hilarious new meaning, the narrator is complaining about straight laced Christians... who may or not have been indoctrinated into a cult. It's not about freelove hippies. Just shows how good songwriting can often cleverly hide itself out in the open. @Steely Dan

 

[The 3rd Hooligan]

There is a classic.
Song about lost love and youth.

 

[Doctor Placebo]

I know it's popular to hate on Maxwell's Silver Hammer (including by some members of the Beetles) but it's such a happy little tune about a serial killer. The two girls simping for him is also a hilarious touch.

 

[Power Ranger Monster]

Non-Example: Turns out Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under The Bridge" does not end with a suicide over impotence (stemming from a misheard lyric of "I could not get it up"). Just a simple "no want drugs no more" song.

 

[Yuuichirou Kumada]

The go-to song from Japan always sounded like it was about someone weeping over a lost love or the end of a relationship.
It's actually about the singer feeling hopeless after seeing a fierce workers' strike amount to nothing.

 

[SnekTheRat]

David Bowie has a lot of songs with depressing lyrics, but most fans of his know this. This thread reminded me of the time I was chatting with a friend back in college about music with dark lyrics. They were showing me a bunch of punk/pop and metal lyrics, which were dark but not so depressing, so I grabbed up the words for The Next Day by Bowie. They were in awe at the poetics and imagery and immediately asked to hear the song. They were upset the music wasn't gloomy enough. Great record, but Blackstar takes the cake in my book.

EDIT: formatting

 

[Open Window Maniac]

Awkward by Tyler, The Creator starts out about how happy a teenager feels with his first romance but ends with the teenager being obsessive with the girl he feel in love with.

You're my girlfriend... You're my girl (Whether you like it or not!)

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

If you like dark, clever lyrics, check out Amigo the Devil. He's a rising star and his shows have been exploding when he tours, check him out if he comes to venue near you. He's one of the best performers today, I promise you that.

 

[Pee Cola]

"The Way" by Fastball is about an elderly couple that went missing and were later found dead in a car wreck.

 

[Big Scumfuck]

There is a classic.
Song about lost love and youth.

Also in terms of Rod Stewart(who I always confuse Manilow with), Maggie May is about a teacher seducing one of her students and keeping them in an emotionally abusive relationship.

 

[Yuuichirou Kumada]

Depending on who you ask, this one is either about letting go of stupid beliefs, realizing one has made a fool of themselves, or the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler.

 

[Michael Jacks0n]

I don't know if this really counts -- since the lyrics are very verbatim and not clever at all, but instead it's a happy up-tempo song with depressing lyrics. One of Nirvana's happiest and poppiest songs "Sliver" was about a true story of when Kurt was a small child his parents dropped him off at his strict grandparents' house to babysit him. His grandparents forced him to eat gross food so he cried and they yelled at him, and the song's chorus is him repeatedly begging for his grandparents to please take him home.

It's just kind of odd because the music and video are all happy and cheerful especially for Nirvana, but the subject matter is kind of sad:

 

[Wernie Sanders]

Suicide Solution by Ozzy Osbourne is actually not about suicide, it's about Bon Scott's alcoholism.

Ozzy calling out anyone else for being a drunkard is solid gold. I'd sooner listen to Bono preach at me about the struggle.

 

[Dysnomia]

It's a song about Mark David Chapman killing John Lennon.

Twisted Little Daydreams
Memories with pain
Locking me behind the closet door
I will be a good boy
Promise I won't run
Sit quite in my room
Playing with my toy gun
Now I'm older but the memories
Still eat me like disease.
Alone in the darkness
Watching you on my T.V.
Why did God make you so famous
When he only spit on me.
I want to bathe in your light.
I want to be on the news.
If I take your life
It's nothing personal.
Just a boy and his toy gun
Dying for attention.
I'm sitting on the steps.
The sun is sinking low.
The world gets very quiet
As the street lamps start to glow.
I step out and I raise my gun
Time just seems to slow.
For a moment I can see myself
Trapped in your reflection.
I'm angry and I'm lonely
And I'm dying for attention.
I want to bathe in your light.
I want to be on the news.
If I take your life
Its nothing personal.
Just a boy and his toy gun
Dying for attention.
Dying for attention
Mama.

Dog Eat Dog is criminally underrated. It just came out at the wrong time and didn't get a lot of promotion.